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toggledbits

Have you looked at the logs to confirm your theory? Every device action is logged. I wrote this post a couple of months ago about how to find which Rule is manipulating a device.

toggledbits

@Pabla said in Can you run MSR on Home Assistant OS ?:

Had to edit entity config file recently to batch update entity names

You mean in the storage directory?

toggledbits

@Pabla said in Can you run MSR on Home Assistant OS ?:

occasionally you have to go into the container's directory to make changes and HA OS basically makes that impossible.

If you have to go into the container to make changes, something is wrong in the configuration. Nothing inside the container should ever need to be changed. Everything that is "mutable" and configurable by the user should be in the data directory external to the container. So... this comment has me puzzled...

And Docker can be made even easier with Portainer on top!

Not a fan, but I can see the utility. And there's a Portainer add-on for HA OS.

toggledbits

UPDATE (Jan 2026)

Orange Pi now offers a model 4A in 2GB or 4GB RAM configurations. The new model features an eight-core processor at 1.8Ghz, USB C power only (the DC barrel jack has been removed), an M.2 NVMe SSD (M-key 2280) slot, and eMMC interface (so no more onboard eMMC configurations, apparently, you have to buy an eMMC module separately). The 2GB model can be found for around US$55. eMMC modules are available in 32, 64, and 256GB (64GB is around US$32).

toggledbits

UPDATE (Jan 2026)

The Orange PI Zero 2 1GB is still available from that large, well-known online retailer; current pricing is $39.

I have one of these boards in service as my pool interface. Trouble-free, faithful service. The big plus for my particular use is that is has its WiFi on a UFL connector rather than traces-on-board, so I can use an external antenna for better range to the nearest AP in my home.

Again, don't confuse this board with the Orange Pi Zero or the Orange Pi Zero 2W, which are different boards.

toggledbits

UPDATE — JANUARY 2026

Since this Libre Le Potato board is still a good lower-cost alternative to RPis (especially for running Reactor), I pulled it out and did an update on the OS (Ubuntu 22.04.1). It had been in storage since I wrote the first post in November 2022, so it was... ahem... a little behind.

My first attempt at apt update semi-failed because a signature for one repository had changed, so that had to be fixed (easy):

wget https://deb.libre.computer/repo/pool/main/libr/libretech-keyring/libretech-keyring_2024.05.19_all.deb
dpkg -i libretech-keyring_2024.05.19_all.deb

From there, I was able to update the OS as usual. After the update, Ubuntu offered an upgrade to the current 24.04.3 LTS release. In the interest of science, I went for it (do-release-upgrade). That went less well. The system came up, but without networking and ssh access. I had to fix that with a locally-connected HDMI monitor and keyboard by adding (as root) a /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml file as follows:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    end0:
      dhcp4: true

Then run (still in a shell as root) netplan apply to bring the network up (you should be able to ping something at that point), and then systemctl enable ssh to re-enable sshd at startup. I then rebooted the unit, and all was well and it was ssh accessible.

I then upgraded nodejs to the current v24 LTS, and ran Reactor, no problem.

As of this writing, the price of this board at that large, well-known online retailer is around US$45. A heatsink for the CPU may be needed.

An upgraded/newer Sweet Potato model AML-S905X-CC-V2 runs about US$60 (with 2GB RAM). Same CPU; changes include heatsink now included/installed, DDR4 RAM, UEFI BIOS, USB C power input (5V/3A), support for a PoE hat, and an eMMC 5.x SM interface. A 16GB eMMC (flash disk) 5.x module is available (same source) for around US$10. Direct OS support includes Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 LTS).

Since eMMC 5.x modules are available for the Sweet Potato, I highly recommend it (I wasn't able to find a seller of eMMC 4.x modules compatible with the older Le Potato at this point). MicroSD cards are notoriously failure prone (they're not up to the sustained, frequent writes of general purpose OSs). The NAND flash will do much better and likely be faster. Alternately, you could use an overlay filesystem. Maybe I'll write a post about that separately, if anyone wants to know.

therealdb

Yes. It’s just the part where you need to understand paths and ports mapping. The a couple of cli command with docker compose and you’re good to go. Portability and backups are super easy (and fast).

toggledbits

@therealdb said in Can you run MSR on Home Assistant OS ?:

It’s just the first phase that’s complicate.

Spot on! For most Linux systems, docker is just a package with a one-line install process. From there, life is simple if you install and use docker-compose, for which I include sample configurations in both the documentation and the distribution.

therealdb

It surely depends on the model. I’ve seen great results with Claude 4.5, Gemini 3 and GPT 5+. I’m lucky to have all them accessible thru GitHub CoPilot Pro.

But I agree. Giving the best context with your instructions surely makes a difference.

therealdb

It’s just the first phase that’s complicated. In terms of every day operations, it’s very easy to manage and automate. Plus, no need to backup the entire vm but you’re good with just data and less memory/cpu intensive by design. Worth to explorer when doing a major re-design imho.

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